Univision's Hispanic Audience Avidly Consumes Content, Ads on Mobile

Keith Turner, president of advertising sales and marketing at Univision Communications Inc., spoke with eMarketer’s Ellen Oppenheim for eMarketer’s Media Voices series about how the company is leveraging Hispanic consumers’ mobile and digital usage.

eMarketer: What advertising campaign in the past year do you consider most successful in using Univision’s digital assets and why?

Turner: We have strong cross-platform stories across the CPG [consumer packaged goods] and telecom categories. For example, some campaigns used all of Univision’s digital assets around our reality beauty competition program Nuestra Belleza Latina (NBL), including mobile web and text voting, enhanced viewer experiences with the NBL second screen, and an NBL fantasy league game where audience members were awarded points for their participation.

“Hispanics are early adopters and heavy users of technology, and they are more likely to engage with mobile ads than non-Hispanics. Advertisers should leverage that insight to drive consumer engagement.”

We have also had success with a 360 campaign for a pharma client leveraging the Univision Network [at] local stations across the country in order to drive traffic and engagement to the health section on Univision.com. The efforts generated a 50% year-over-year increase in unique visitors.

eMarketer: What is the most common mistake that you see advertisers make in using Univision’s digital properties?

Turner: One of the biggest challenges we see is that many agencies and buyers still view mobile inventory as lower value. Hispanics are early adopters and heavy users of technology, and they are more likely to engage with mobile ads than non-Hispanics. Advertisers should leverage that insight to drive consumer engagement.

Mobile for us is about a more engaging, more personal, more direct form of engagement—and it is growing at a fantastic rate. In fact, we experienced 300% growth in mobile video plays in January 2013 vs. January 2012. Our mobile audience has surpassed desktop. Based on that growth, we expect the mobile momentum to continue.

In addition, not enough clients are leveraging rich media. We’re seeing underutilization of high-impact executions both on mobile and online that could potentially drive higher engagement. We encourage our partners to think about the platform on which they are advertising and not just translate an online display banner to mobile specs.

eMarketer: Data shows that Hispanics overindex on mobile usage, but advertising on mobile lags in usage. What campaign illustrates the power of advertising to Hispanics on mobile?

Turner: I can’t cite specific campaigns, but I can tell you that we have started to see some savvy marketers buck the trend of lagging in mobile by running mobile-only campaigns with us.

Mobile presents a tremendous opportunity for advertisers looking to reach young Hispanics. We have 300 million page views per month on our mobile properties, the majority coming from smartphones for mobile web and more coming from our apps. That is a shift in usage from the normal legacy device, [computers].

“A serious risk to achieving success is underinvesting and expecting results that are equal or greater to efforts with other segments of the population.”

With our Univision audience now accessing our digital offerings more on smart devices, we can do more things—from deeper social integration to second-screen interactions to enhancing our live streaming. We can also enhance the ad by creating richer ad types that incorporate voting, polling, sign-ups and coupons within the ad. We can make the ad dynamic. This signifies a very big shift in the way we will market to our mobile audience.

eMarketer: What are the best practices in advertising to Hispanic audiences?

Turner: Brands first need to understand the current and potential value [of advertising to Hispanics] to effectively fund marketing initiatives. A serious risk to achieving success is underinvesting and expecting results that are equal or greater to efforts with other segments of the population.

Next, it is critical to embrace the similarities and celebrate the differences between Hispanics and non-Hispanics. In doing this, many marketers find Hispanic insights and research can be effective drivers. Lastly and most importantly, [marketers should] develop messaging and creative that are culturally relevant, that speak to the Hispanic consumer.